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they decided to do something to generate the much-needed revenue during the slow summer months.

The owner and his staff had always talked about reaching customers beyond the residents of the local town, but they never had time to seriously consider it because never had the time. Now they had the time.

Located about ten miles west on the Interstate was a group of large commercial parks where several big corporations were headquartered and hundreds of smaller companies had offices. Most of the 60,000 people who work in this industrial park commuted each day from outside the area. The vast majority of them lived in the city and outlying suburbs west of the industrial park, so few ever ventured further east.

"Tres Chic" carried trendy dress and casual clothing for men and women that they thought would appeal to the thousands of office workers. They also carried many more designer brands than any of the shops in mall. After reviewing the situation and his advertising, the owner devised a different plan for this summer.

The weekly local newspaper ads, cable TV spots and direct mailings he ran in past years to reach local residents produced minimal results and wouldn't reach the office workers the store now wanted to target. So instead, he ran drive time radio spots to reach the workers during their daily commute. The spots promoted the shop's complete line of designer office attire, as well trendy clothes for casual Fridays.

The store also created flyers and discount coupons promoting a VIP customer club created especially for workers in the corporate park. These materials were hand delivered to the reception desks of each company in the corporate park.

Within a week after the radio spots and his flyer and coupon campaign started, he started getting about 20 customers a day, all as a result of the advertising. His sales for the week were 60% higher than the same period last summer. Each week during the summer, his business steadily increased. Even people who lived in town dropped by the store because of his new radio campaign.

At the end of the August, the store's summer revenue totaled 867% higher than the summer before. And because he limited his advertising to just radio and flyers, his summer advertising costs were 36% less.

The campaign not only produced incredible results for the summer, it expanded his customer base and increased sales for the "back to school season" and the "holiday shopping season" as well.

This case and countless others simply and clearly proves that if you operate a year round business, it pays to advertise year round too.

Learn more about this author, Michael Crozier.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

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